Herb Shop
A woman’s voice rang in my ear, but I looked down at my feet first.
I found the source of the sharp magical energy wave. Something like a long plant stem was stretching out.
It was pitch-black.
“It’s a Black Hand. If it wraps around your ankle, you’ll get dragged straight into the forest.”
The woman’s voice came again.
I carefully shook off my foot and stepped back a few paces. Then I raised my head and looked toward where the sound had come from.
A woman was visible across the road.
A woman with long, cascading hair and large glasses stood holding a sickle in her hand.
It was in front of a shop with yellow light leaking out.
‘Isn’t that a sickle? Who carries around a sickle in the middle of Seoul?’
The woman walked across the road toward me and sliced through the thick, trailing plant stems with the sickle she held.
The severed vine-hand looked as if it were squirming.
“That said, it’s not a very dangerous fellow. It doesn’t really have any venom. It just has enough strength to drag a person in.”
The woman spoke while swinging her sickle.
A bluish-purple light flickered around the sickle. Now that I looked, it didn’t seem to be an ordinary sickle but a magical tool.
The woman scooped up the severed vine-hand with her sickle and flung it into the Neo Forest, then raised her head to look at me.
“All good now. Huh? You were a mage? Then I worried for nothing. Mages don’t usually come looking for the forest at such a late hour, so I thought you were another lost wanderer.”
Then she grinned.
Her attitude was unhesitant. Unlike ordinary people, she didn’t seem to fear mages.
Seeing that she recognized me as a mage at a glance, the woman seemed to be someone familiar with magic as well.
“Thank you for your concern. Are you the Neo Forest caretaker?”
I asked lightly and subtly activated detection magic. I could feel a faint magical wave from the woman, but it wasn’t to the extent that I’d call her a mage.
What was peculiar was that the magical wave flowing from the woman was stretching out toward the forest.
Not only that, but the forest’s magical wave was also flowing into her, however faintly.
‘Her wave is connected to the forest? Is she someone like a Druid?’
Curiosity rose at the mysterious exchange of waves. It was similar to Gil.
“No. I run a shop over there. An herb shop. Since I’m right in front of the Neo Forest, I sometimes do unsolicited caretaking like this.”
The woman answered with a cheerful laugh.
I looked toward the shop again. It had been dark earlier so I couldn’t see properly, but beneath the shade of the yellow light, I could see a sign that read ‘Herb Shop Yggdrasil.’
‘So this was the place. The herb shop Yantu mentioned. Then is this woman the owner, the expert?’
I turned my gaze back to the woman. It was dark here, so I couldn’t see her face properly.
“I see. An herb shop—that makes me curious. May I look around the store?”
“Of course. I was just about to close up, but you’ll be my last customer of the day, Mage. Come in and take a look.”
The woman spoke amiably and took the lead.
After crossing the road and entering the herb shop, the woman flipped the sign on the glass door from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed.’ Then she turned off the light illuminating the sign.
“I don’t intend to take any more customers. There aren’t any this time of night anyway. But this is your first time here, right? I remember every single customer who’s ever stopped by even once. I don’t remember you, Mage.”
“Yes. It’s my first time. Are there many mages among your customers?”
“Naturally. It’s an herb shop, after all. Herbs and potions are far more effective for those who can handle magical power.”
I slowly looked around the inside of the shop.
The interior of the herb shop was filled with plants like a flower shop. Some were potted, and some were hung on lines to dry.
Colorful liquids in glass bottles also caught my eye. Inside them, herbs and the like were submerged.
“You have quite a variety. Are the plants used here gathered from the Neo Forest?”
I asked, pointing at the dried plants.
“That’s right. Most of them are plants from the Neo Forest. They’re full of magical power, so they make excellent potion ingredients. They’re children that share the World Tree’s vitality.”
The woman had been treating the plants like people from the start. Moreover, she called the World Tree ‘World Tree-nim’ outright. It was a unique manner of speech.
“But doesn’t the government strictly control entry into the Neo Forest? Is it permissible to go in and gather plants?”
“Naturally, you can’t enter past the boundary line. But as you saw just now, Mage, the plants don’t exactly keep to the boundary. Many of them stretch outward. That’s when I go snip!”
The woman spoke without reserve and even laughed heartily.
Considering the scene I’d witnessed earlier, it wasn’t a wrong statement. But somehow, it didn’t feel like that was the whole story.
‘You run an herb shop with just the plants that stretch out? Is that really true? I bet she sneaks into the forest with a basket and harvests plants by the armful.’
The woman looked like someone fully capable of that. Besides, how else could there be such a variety of plants in the herb shop?
The scenery inside the herb shop looked like a corner of the Neo Forest had been cut out and moved here.
“Take your time looking around for anything you need. I’ve briefly written down the effects of each, but if you have any questions, ask me.”
The woman left me to browse comfortably and went about her own tasks. She brought in the pots she’d put out in front and prepared to close up.
I looked around the shop a bit more.
From the various plants and the medicine bottles containing potions inside the shop, magical waves flowed out from each.
But they were well controlled. The waves flowed smoothly through the space without interfering with one another.
The owner woman seemed to possess considerable ability.
“Do you happen to have any potions made from Golden Apples?”
After wondering how to broach the subject, I first threw out the question lightly, as if in passing.
But at that moment, the woman snapped her head up and stared at me. A sickle was already in her hand.
The woman shouted.
“Who are you? Who sent you!”
“Ah, hold on. Let’s put that down and talk.”
I said, stepping back.
I was slightly surprised. I hadn’t expected the woman to react so sharply. And I hadn’t thought her movements would be so quick.
“Shut up! Cut the crap. Tell me who you are first!”
The woman shouted again. At the same time, her other hand, the one not holding the sickle, grabbed a glass bottle from the display case.
Inside the small glass bottle was a blood-colored liquid. It was a potion of a hue that looked extremely ominous at a glance.
“Wait! The reason I came here is….”
I spoke urgently.
It wasn’t as if I couldn’t stop it with magic, but for now I intended to resolve this through conversation. I hadn’t come here to fight.
But the woman seemed to think otherwise.
It didn’t seem she had asked me a question to hear the answer.
Before I could finish speaking, the woman slammed the glass bottle she was holding onto the floor, shattering it.
* * *
I was lying on the hard floor. Before my eyes, red clouds were billowing up.
Had I lost consciousness for a moment?
‘I got hit. I let my guard down. To think she’d attack immediately like that….’
I forced a bitter smile and tried to raise my body. But I couldn’t move.
It seemed the red vapor contained a component that paralyzed the body.
“Hey. What on earth are you doing? Do you just attack anyone?”
Fortunately, when I opened my mouth, words came out.
I couldn’t turn my head, so I moved my eyeballs around to look and saw the woman sitting in a chair placed in the corner of the shop, arms crossed, silently looking down at me.
“I’ll ask again. Who are you? Who sent you?”
The woman asked in a calm voice.
“My name is Oudin. No one sent me here.”
I answered calmly too. Since the woman was speaking casually, I dropped the honorifics as well.
Yantu had played a role in me coming to this herb shop, but I didn’t think I needed to go that far.
Strictly speaking, I had come of my own accord; Yantu hadn’t sent me here.
First, I needed to find out why the owner woman was reacting so sensitively.
“What organization are you with? Which mage are you working under?”
“I’m not affiliated with anyone. I’m a freelancer.”
At my words, the woman tilted her head quizzically. Then she soon continued questioning.
“Why did you come here? You acted like you were just passing by and wanted to look around, but you actually came with a purpose. Right?”
“That’s right. I came here deliberately. I came to ask about the Golden Apple.”
“So why on earth are you curious about the Golden Apple?”
“Banaheim made a health supplement prototype called Golden Apple. They said it was based on the real Golden Apple that grew in the Neo Forest. But during clinical trials, side effects occurred….”
By this point, I had clearly realized the problem with my current situation.
My mouth was running off on its own.
I hadn’t planned to tell the woman everything straightforwardly from the start. I had intended to approach this more strategically.
But as if honesty were my only creed, I was answering her questions honestly.
“Wait! Could it be this red vapor….?”
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a drug that induces confession. Made from pollen harvested from the stamen of a black gold-pouch flower. It also has a body-paralyzing effect, so you won’t be able to move for now, but it’s only temporary paralysis, so don’t worry.”
The woman smiled brightly with a triumphant expression. Then she immediately wiped the smile from her face and looked straight at me, throwing a question.
“Didn’t you say you were a freelancer? Then how do you know so much about Banaheim’s internal affairs?”
“Because I met someone involved in the experiment.”
Now that I knew about the confession drug, I carefully chose my answers. I couldn’t lie, but I could select which parts of the truth to tell.
“So, did you come here to find out about the real Golden Apple’s ingredients from me in order to eliminate the medicine’s side effects?”
“No. I didn’t come here to help Banaheim. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m planning to stop Banaheim from making the Golden Apple product.”
“Really? You’re not lying?”
“Of course not. You’re using a confession drug right now.”
I smiled and raised one hand, pointing at the red cloud.
And without giving the woman time to be surprised, I quickly raised my body, got behind her, and wrapped one arm tightly around her neck.
“Now it’s your turn. Who are you? Who are you working under?”